D-238 “Delta” (2012 – 2015) was a female Velociraptor antirrhopus masranii originally bred for InGen Security‘s I.B.R.I.S. Project. She was the second-oldest member of her subspecies to survive infancy, with one older sister and two younger sisters. She was initially planned to be a Jurassic World attraction, though InGen Security also intended to test her capabilities as a military animal. She was contained within park facilities between 2012 and 2015.
On December 22, 2015, Delta was used in a field test along with her sisters as a part of an incident taking place in the park. This incident involved the escape of a park asset, the genetically-engineered Indominus rex, which the Velociraptors were tasked with locating. Unfortunately, during the operation, Delta and her sisters rejected captivity; they briefly recognized the Indominus as an authority before rejecting it as well. In the ensuing conflict Delta was killed.
Name
This raptor’s specimen number, D-238, comes from the mobile game Jurassic World: The Game and has not been featured in the film canon proper. Its meaning is not known. Her given name, which is used almost universally, comes from the military phonetic alphabet used by the United States Armed Forces; the letter D is referred to using “delta.” This ensures correct spelling. Delta’s trainer, Owen Grady, was a former sailor with the U.S. Navy and gave his animals (with the exception of the eldest, Blue) names from the military phonetic alphabet; Delta’s younger sisters have names beginning with C and E. It is unknown why the order of these letters does not correspond to the raptors’ ages.
Biography
Early life
Like her sisters, Delta was hatched in 2012 after being genetically engineered from older versions of Velociraptor antirrhopus. Delta in particular was engineered with genes sourced from birds of prey (species unknown), which gave her excellent tactical capabilities and noticeably birdlike movements, even more so than her sisters. She also had genes sourced from the tokay gecko (Gekko gecko), which gave her vertical beaded pupils and therefore excellent distance vision.
The exact date on which Delta was created and the date on which she hatched are unknown. Along with her sisters, she hatched in 2012; Blue’s hatch date is between May 15 and April 19, and Delta hatched sometime after this. She appeared to be close to her sisters in age, and was roughly eight weeks old on Day 176 of the I.B.R.I.S. Project, making her about seventeen weeks younger than the project itself.
She was the second of her kind to survive infancy, with the oldest being Blue. The next in line was Echo, with Charlie as the youngest. All four, along with their siblings who did not survive, were hatched in the Hammond Creation Laboratory after being engineered by InGen’s lead genetic biologist Dr. Henry Wu. She most likely incubated within a surrogate egg provided by another deinonychosaur owned by InGen. Upon hatching, Delta was met by her adoptive father, InGen Security animal behaviorist Owen Grady. He spent the next three years raising and caring for her.
After she hatched, Delta was fitted with a subdermal RFID tracking implant which would constantly report her location to Jurassic World’s computer network. This implant could also read her biometrics and other physiological data, making it easier to track her health. Because she was intended to spend her life within a physical paddock, her implant was probably not keyed into a particular zone of the park’s invisible fence system.
At approximately eight weeks of age, a hierarchy had developed among Delta and her sisters. Blue, the oldest, largest, strongest, and most intelligent, easily took a place at the top of this hierarchy, with her younger siblings falling in line with her. This was established by Day 176 of I.B.R.I.S., roughly twenty-five weeks into the program. Delta was Blue’s second-in-command, though Charlie was the favorite. Grady had a harder time getting Delta’s loyalty; during a training session, she tried to attack him when he acted vulnerable (a thick glove and Delta’s young age meant Grady was unharmed). Blue, on the other hand, tried to comfort Grady during the same exercise. Therefore, Delta’s loyalty to Grady was achieved through her loyalty to Blue. Over time, Delta learned to respond to simple commands.
I.B.R.I.S. training
By 2013, Delta and her siblings entered young adulthood, which meant their lives grew more complex. They inhabited Jurassic World’s raptor research paddock, a facility including contained jungle and a training arena. Blue began challenging Grady’s authority, and he had to take measures to establish that he was still in charge. Similarly, Blue was challenged for the beta position by Echo, which led to a violent fight between the sisters. Delta does not appear to have gotten into any such fights. She was similar in authority to Echo, but never challenged Blue so aggressively.
Grady continued training the four raptors, teaching them more commands. By May 17, at which point Delta was about a year old, Grady came to realize that their social dynamic was more complicated than InGen originally believed. He requested that his friend Barry Sembène be recruited onto the project. His overseer Vic Hoskins agreed, and Sembène was brought on board; he became a secondary caretaker to Delta and the other raptors. Sembène and Delta seem to have been particularly close, with a healthy trust and respect between them.
Grady performed the training exercises for Delta and the others, using a clicker device along with visual and vocal commands to teach them to perform certain actions. When they performed successfully, he would reward them with food such as beef jerky and rats. Training exercises were often unsuccessful; for example, one of the common exercises was to have the raptors chase a small pig but cease their pursuit when commanded to do so. The raptors would often let their predatory instincts override Grady’s commands, killing the pig after being ordered not to.
When the raptors were not in training, Sembène tended to their health. While the raptors tested their caretakers and frequently made escape attempts, they still maintained a sense of loyalty. They learned to recognize and respond to at least forty distinct commands. Some exercises, such as the aforementioned pig chase, were a struggle even as of 2015; however, Delta and her sisters were recorded as responding appropriately to commands 73% of the time.
This trust was not present with all of the human members of IBRIS. Many of the ACU personnel hired by Vic Hoskins were prepared at any time to use nonlethal weapons to subdue the raptors, and at least one paddock worker was severely mauled by a raptor in 2015. Grady himself was wary of the raptors and kept a close watch on all four of them to prevent escapes or attacks on any more workers.
There was a brief incident during the night of December 19, 2015 when three campers from Camp Cretaceous trespassed into the raptor paddock. Delta was called by Blue to help confront Kenji Kon, who was separated from them by a gate. This gate was accidentally opened, and fellow camper Darius Bowman entered the paddock to help him. The two teenagers were rescued by the intervention of camp counselors Roxie and Dave. Floodlights blinded the raptors, and meat was delivered to distract them.
2015 incident
On December 22, 2015, when Delta was three years old, Blue successfully responded to Grady’s stop command during a pig chase exercise. Delta, Echo, and Charlie followed suit, deferring to Blue’s authority. This was witnessed by Vic Hoskins and other InGen personnel. Shortly after the exercise, the pig used in the chase escaped back into the paddock, and a recently-hired handler named Colby Boothman-Shepard attempted to recover the animal. While he did snare it successfully, it was grabbed by Echo while still in the snare; this caused Boothman-Shepard to be dragged off the catwalk and into the paddock. Grady entered the paddock to rescue his employee, confronting Blue while convincing ACU to stand down. Delta and Charlie advanced on Grady, only held back from attacking him by Blue’s restraint. But Blue showed signs that she knew she could kill Grady if she wanted, and Grady was slowly backing toward the exit with Boothman-Shepard in tow. Once the worker was safely out of the paddock, Grady made a quick escape, and Delta followed Blue in a charge after him. The paddock gate was closed before they could kill him.
Delta had a brief encounter with Hoskins that day, as he joked about bringing her home as a pet (and assumed her to be a male raptor). Sembène chided Hoskins, but both men were soon called away on an urgent matter. The encounter had been brief, but Delta did not enjoy Hoskins’s presence one bit. That night, Delta and her sisters were commandeered by InGen Security members ranking above the usual ACU staff. They were led into a hide-and-seek exercise, which they had performed numerous times with Grady. Delta and her sisters were presented with a piece of meat belonging to a species they had never encountered before, instructed by Grady to track down the source. They were released into the world outside for the first time, and Delta followed Blue in joyfully sprinting through the jungle on her first real hunt. Grady, Sembène, and InGen Security members followed.
When they neared the source of the scent, they slowed and stopped. An unknown animal was heard vocalizing in the jungle nearby, and Echo responded to it with a social call. Emerging from the jungle, the enormous Indominus rex revealed itself to the raptors. Blue and the new creature sized one another up, each vocalizing to try and establish dominance. During the interaction, Delta began to realize that the Indominus was a more powerful leader than Grady, and that its strength could give her pack the one thing Grady would not: the freedom to live in the wild. Delta observed Blue’s deliberation and followed suit.
InGen Security opened fire on the Indominus, frightening Delta and the other raptors into the jungle and driving the larger creature away. Now viewing the humans as a threat, Delta and the others set up ambushes to kill off the InGen soldiers one by one. During the ensuing firefight, Charlie was killed. This sent Blue into a rage, and she now led Delta and Echo in an attack on Grady himself. The chase led back to the paddock, where Delta killed a veteran InGen Security trooper as he tried to climb into MVU-12. Blue led them to attack MVU-12 as it sped to the southwest; Blue attacked its driver Claire Dearing from the side during the chase, but was struck against a tree and fell out.
Delta and Echo coordinated to continue the chase, aiming for the still-open doors in the back of the MVU. Within were two young humans, Zach and Gray Mitchell, who fended off their attackers by throwing medical supplies and utilizing a shock prod. Delta was struck by the shock prod whilst trying to climb inside. Shortly thereafter, the chase was called off as the Indominus summoned the three remaining raptors to reconvene in the forest.
They made their way to Main Street ahead of the Indominus, most likely following the scent of the vehicles Grady had fled with. Delta went ahead to track him through the Innovation Center, discovering him in the same laboratory where she had been genetically engineered. He, Dearing, and the Mitchell boys had gone there to seek help from Dr. Wu, but were now being confronted by Hoskins. Although Delta’s mission was to flush out Grady for her sisters waiting in ambush outside, she could not help but approach the man who she so hated. Hoskins tried to calm her down and win her loyalty, mimicking Grady’s hand gestures, but his fear showed through. Delta, not interested in an alliance with this untrustworthy man, bit his right hand before throwing him to the ground and eviscerating him. Grady and the other humans fled.
Delta pursued them through the Innovation Center, briefly being stopped by a hologram of a Dilophosaurus. She was taken by surprise, but when she tried to pounce on the bizarre transparent theropod, she passed through it and immediately realized it was an illusion. She resumed her chase, not wanting to let her quarry escape. Fortunately, they had run right into the trap set by Blue and Echo. Delta joined her sisters, waiting for Blue’s kill command.
However, Grady managed to calm Blue. While the Indominus promised her freedom as her alpha, she did not provide familial love or mutual respect in the way that Grady had done for Blue’s entire life. Grady removed her harness, promising her freedom. Despite Charlie’s death, Blue calmed down and felt loyal to Grady as she had before. Although they did not understand Blue’s decision, Delta and Echo obeyed their sister.
The Indominus caught up with the raptors, commanding them to kill. Blue refused, which earned her a devastating slap from the larger animal. She was thrown into a storefront, stunned and unable to move; she appeared dead. Delta and Echo, complying with Blue’s final act as their leader, stayed loyal to Grady and attacked the Indominus. Despite delivering savage bites and slashes, their fury was not enough to bring the creature down even with help from Grady’s rifle. Its tough skin was more than their natural armaments could penetrate. Delta was tossed into Winston’s Steakhouse, landing on the gas ovens and inadvertently triggering a brief but fatal gas explosion. Temperatures in the range of 3,000°F (1,648.9°C) gave third-degree burns over Delta’s entire body, causing her a quick but very painful death. Echo perished too, crushed fatally in the jaws of the Indominus.
Legacy
With her body burned at extreme temperature, little would have been left of Delta after the gas explosion that caused her death. Most likely, no efforts to remove her remains from Isla Nublar were made; what was left over after the blast was probably abandoned. Delta’s body was probably largely incinerated in the explosion, but since it was a short and not especially forceful blast, her skeletal remains could have remained intact. They may have remained in Winston’s Steakhouse until other animals or natural events caused them to be moved or destroyed.
Despite appearances, Delta was survived by one biological family member: Blue, whose injuries were not fatal, and who had been left to watch helplessly as her family was slaughtered before her eyes. She recovered enough to spring back into battle and, with the unexpected help of a freshly-released Tyrannosaurus, drive the Indominus toward the Jurassic World Lagoon where it was snatched by the park’s resident Mosasaurus and torn in half underwater.
Grady, too, survived this incident thanks to Blue’s intervention. Jurassic World was closed permanently, and Grady left the island to begin a new life. He and Blue were eventually, briefly, brought back together three years later; Grady unwillingly aided in relocating Blue to the North American mainland as Isla Nublar was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Grady’s reluctant participation in this mission was inspired by his memories of the I.B.R.I.S. Project, including memories of Delta when she was young.
Skills
Tactics
While not the leader of her pack, Delta was a highly intelligent hunter with great tactical skill. Part of this was a result of the avian DNA incorporated into her genome; birds of prey have astounding spacial awareness, since they hunt in three dimensions. Delta was bound to the earth, but all raptors (bird or not) are dynamic hunters capable of attacking prey from any angle. Tokay gecko DNA also aided in her hunting abilities by causing her eyes to have vertical beaded pupils, a trait that helps gauge distance and acclimate to hunting in various environments. She had further advantage due to her I.B.R.I.S. training, which gave her a superior understanding of human behavior compared to wild raptors. This turned deadly during the 2015 incident, in which she and her sisters killed several members of InGen Security. Her excellent senses of smell and vision helped her here, since she could easily detect enemies in the dark where humans had to use technology to see. She focused intently on her target, striking with a quick and brutal attack: she only let the kill drag out longer if it was an enemy she particularly hated.
Delta’s skill at organizing her sisters also came into play during the 2015 incident. Blue was the smartest and strongest, but even she could not compare to Delta’s ability to play to her sisters’ strengths. Delta was a skilled ambush hunter, able to use fear and intimidation to control the behaviors of prey. This even worked against Owen Grady himself toward the end of the incident: Delta drove him out into an ambush, knowing that Blue was prepared to bring him to a stop while Echo lurked nearby to cut off any escape. With her intimate knowledge of her sisters’ strategy, Delta could set them up for success. She was able to do this in 2015 despite being in an unfamiliar environment; she had never been out of captivity before that night, but quickly figured out the jungle, the Innovation Center, and the Hammond Creation Lab in short order.
Social skills
Velociraptor is an inherently social animal, with the instinct to live in small to medium-sized groups of family members and friends. Delta was easily the most peaceable of her sisters, remaining neutral in family conflicts (such as Echo’s challenge to Blue’s authority when they were younger) and showing respect to all three of her sisters regardless of their status. She acted as Blue’s second-in-command during hunts, and coordinated well with Echo. However, out of the four of them, Blue is the only one to have ever shown signs of empathy. During I.B.R.I.S. training in 2012, Delta was given a test in which Owen Grady pretended to be in distress to see how the raptors would respond. Only Blue provided comfort; Delta, in fact, tried to attack Grady when she sensed weakness.
Delta seems to have responded primarily to powerful authority figures. For her entire life, she held Blue in the utmost respect, even more so than Grady (who was technically their alpha). Any decision Blue made, Delta followed; this included recognizing other individuals as authorities, such as the Indominus.
Physical strength and durability
Delta’s maximum speed was around fifty miles per hour (she reached her maximum speed most effectively when motivated by food). She could maintain this speed for a respectable amount of time without getting tired, and was also highly agile. Between her impressive musculature and razor-sharp claws and teeth, Delta was a frightful predator capable of holding her own. This made her quite formidable, especially when coupled with her tactical intelligence. Her life in captivity did nothing to temper the killer instincts she hatched with, and during her brief time in the wild, she displayed skilled use of all the standard raptor combat strategies such as ambush attacks and intimidation tactics. Along with these, she had excellent night vision and an advanced sense of smell.
Although she did not survive her fight with the Indominus rex, she held her own against it despite its obviously superior strength. She made good use of her smaller and more nimble frame to dodge this bigger animal’s massive clawed arms and heavy jaws, leaping onto its back where it could not reach and clawing or biting at it from there. When its attacks became too heavy, she retreated and tried again from another angle. It was only a sudden and horrific accident involving a gas oven which killed her, making her the only one of her sisters to fight the Indominus but die by some unrelated means.
Language skills
In addition to the system of communication that her species normally uses, which some scientists such as Dr. Alan Grant consider to be a language, Delta had a basic understanding of some English words and phrases as well as symbolic gestures. In total, Delta comprehended over forty distinct instructions and as of 2015 responded correctly 73% of the time. Some of the incorrect responses are known to have resulted from her deliberately ignoring commands, so her actual rate of comprehension was higher than the 73% value.
Delta also had a limited ability to understand other species, namely the Indominus she encountered during the 2015 incident. She did not engage in much communication with it, leaving this to Blue, but understood the larger theropod’s intents and instructions. Both vocal and body language were used between the two species to facilitate communication.
Views
On social structure
Delta was an immensely skilled hunter and tactician, but she understood that there were leadership qualities she simply did not possess. This is known from the fact that she never challenged Blue for alpha status, unlike her sister Echo. Instead, Delta understood herself to be a supporter, and clearly valued certain traits in a leader. She respected Blue for her strength and confidence, not seeming to understand the significance of Blue’s empathy as a leadership trait. This was part of why she never fully accepted Owen Grady as her alpha: as a human, he was naturally slower and weaker than a Velociraptor in spite of his high intelligence. No human could ever truly have held authority for Delta.
Her perception of the Indominus was a complex one, but ultimately it was regulated by Blue. When they first encountered this beast, it seemed to be everything an alpha should be; it was huge, it was strong, and it was smart. When Blue accepted it as their new leader, it was only natural for Delta to follow. Later that night, Blue changed her mind and rejected the Indominus, earning her a devastating slap. Delta respected Blue’s final order and did not rejoin the Indominus after this: Delta ultimately valued loyalty above all else, and the Indominus did not have an ounce of it. Delta gave her life for this value.
Relationships
Owen Grady
InGen Security animal behaviorist Owen Grady was the first family member Delta met. He was the first creature she saw when she hatched in 2012, so she imprinted on him as a parent. From then on, he fulfilled the role of father figure. Grady had been hired by InGen to be lead researcher on the I.B.R.I.S. Project, which sought to research the animal intelligence of deinonychosaurs to better human interactions with them. However, Delta quickly began to question Grady’s right to be her leader, instead deferring to Blue; on one occasion when she was young, she attacked Grady during a training exercise intended to test her empathic abilities. Needless to say she failed the test.
Delta followed Blue’s lead in challenging Grady’s authority as they grew older. Blue, of course, was the strongest of them all and a better hunter than Grady; Delta was dismissive of Grady’s leadership qualifications as he lacked proper Velociraptor traits. Blue led Delta and the others in escape attempts, which Grady repeatedly had to thwart.
On December 22, 2015, there was an incident at the raptor paddock which required Grady to enter in order to protect another employee. This placed him in a position where the raptors could harm him, at the risk of being fired upon by InGen’s taser rifles. Delta approached Grady, hissing and growling at him and gaping her jaw aggressively. However, Blue did not attack, and so Delta also held back. Even so, they slowly advanced on Grady as he backed away toward the paddock’s closing gates, making to pin him against the wall. Only Blue’s obedience to Grady’s hand gestures prevented their attack. When the gates were almost closed, Grady dove underneath; as soon as he showed a moment of vulnerability, Blue led Delta and Charlie into an attack, but were stopped due to the gates closing right after Grady’s dive.
That same day, Grady took Delta and her sisters in their first out-of-paddock hunt. He did not lead, instead letting the raptors chase down their target using their superior sense of smell. When they located the target, the Indominus rex, the raptors established a form of communication with it and quickly realized that this animal met all the alpha criteria: it was huge and powerful, intelligent and confident, and armed with impressive hunting implements. Grady, by comparison, was an inferior alpha. Turning on Grady was now an option on the table, and the decision was made for them when InGen Security opened fire. Delta attacked Grady at Blue’s orders after Charlie was killed in the firefight.
Delta pursued Grady and his allies to the Innovation Center, where she flushed him out of the building and into an ambush. However, Blue had cooled her head by that time, and Grady was able to calm her down; now Blue refused to kill Grady, and Delta obeyed. Even when Blue appeared to have been killed, Delta stayed true to Blue’s last order and defended Grady until her death.
Blue
Delta’s older sister, Blue, was her leader and superior, and Delta respected her through and through. From the time they were young, Blue assumed the role of authority among the four sisters, with Delta as her trusted subordinate. Blue’s size, strength, cunning, and age all made her fit to be leader, and were all traits Delta saw as respectable, but there was one attribute that Delta did not fully understand: Blue was empathic, having genuine familial love for her sisters. This made Blue capable of understanding her sisters wants and needs, modifying her leadership to accommodate for them. Delta was not prone to empathy like Blue, but did understand her sisters’ strengths. As the leader, Blue’s strength lay in her ability to command her allies and intimidate foes, making her a powerful defensive front. Delta could drive prey directly into Blue’s waiting jaws.
During the 2015 incident, Delta followed Blue’s lead in turning against Owen Grady and InGen, accepting the Indominus rex as her new alpha. However, this was short-lived; Blue soon realized she had made a mistake and rescinded her decision. Delta respected this, and even when it looked as though Blue had been killed, Delta continued to fulfill Blue’s final command. She gave her life fighting the Indominus at Blue’s orders.
Echo
Age-wise, the next in line after Delta was Echo, and this was the sister with whom Delta had the closest relationship. Echo was closer to the wild-type raptors of their ancestry, and so she was less domestic than any of her sisters: she was bold and ruthless, and Delta appreciated this. They often worked together during training and hunts, coordinating with barely a sound made between them. Body language was usually all they needed, their understanding of each other surpassing the need for vocal communication.
One key aspect in which they differed was maturity. Echo was slightly younger, but her brash nature showed far more than with Delta. During their youth, Echo challenged Blue for the position of beta and was badly beaten; Delta, on the other hand, never made any such challenge. Delta understood that her rank was important even if she was not the leader. Echo’s ambition could cause her to make thoughtless and impulsive decisions, sometimes to her detriment, while Delta was more careful and goal-oriented.
Their flawless coordination was on full display during the 2015 incident, during which they chased down an MVU and ambushed their former alpha Owen Grady. Delta’s unbreakable focus guided Echo’s brutal attacks against their targets. When the Indominus changed from alpha to enemy, Delta’s focus switched from Grady to the Indominus without a moment’s hesitation, and Echo joined in the attack with teeth and claws bared. The sisters did not survive the fight, dying within seconds of one another.
Charlie
Delta’s youngest sister was Charlie, the least experienced and most instinctual of the four. Charlie’s youthful exuberance contrasted blatantly with Delta’s levelheaded concentration, so they did not often work together unless all four sisters were teaming up. Charlie’s position in their hunting formation placed her next to Echo, and sometimes her poor sense of personal space caused her to strike Echo by accident; Delta would sometimes switch places with Charlie if this happened. However, if Delta was ever frustrated with Charlie’s behavior, she did not let it show. Charlie did have great use to the pack too, and a kind that Delta could see the value in: her energy and instinct could translate into aggressive attacks when on the hunt, making Charlie a deadly spearhead for the pack.
Unfortunately, during the 2015 incident Charlie was among the first victims. She was killed in a firefight with InGen Security shortly after the sisters rejected Grady and began taking orders from the Indominus rex. Blue’s attack against Grady began when Charlie died, so a large portion of this struggle was an act of vengeance. By the end, though, Blue had cooled off emotionally and recognized that Charlie’s death was not due to Grady but due to the poor leadership of the Indominus. Delta seemingly concurred with this realization, and Charlie’s death was taken off Grady’s shoulders.
Barry Sembéne
When Delta was roughly a year old, her family grew by one human. Owen Grady’s old friend Barry Sembéne was brought to Isla Nublar to join the I.B.R.I.S. Project as an animal caretaker, helping to manage the raptors as their social behavior was more complex than anticipated. While Grady was the primary trainer, Sembéne helped to keep the animals healthy and happy by providing close personal care to them. He developed a particularly close relationship with Delta. Although Delta recognized Grady as her authority, there was always tension between them; this did not exist between Delta and Sembéne, probably because Sembéne was a caretaker and not a pack leader. She respected Grady, but Sembéne was perhaps the only human she truly trusted.
Although Sembéne tended to the raptors closely for the next two years, he maintained a sense of caution about them. He was well aware of their power and skill on the hunt and hardly trusted Grady himself to be in the paddock with them. Sembéne expressed doubts that the raptors would ever be trustworthy enough to be let out of the paddock, believing that they would take any opportunity to reject human leadership and make their own way. His assessment was not inaccurate; when the raptors were presented with the Indominus in the wild, they accepted it as their new alpha in place of Grady. This led to a firefight with InGen Security, in which Charlie died.
Blue attacked Sembéne after Charlie’s death, and Delta was drawn away to other parts of the conflict. Sadly, Sembéne and Delta never saw each other again; the raptors pursued Grady toward the park attractions, and Sembéne was left to make his way back to civilization alone. By the time he arrived, the conflict had already been resolved with Delta among the deceased.
Dr. Henry Wu
Like all of InGen’s dinosaurs, Delta’s genome was constructed by geneticist Dr. Henry Wu. She was a particular specimen, engineered with genes from the tokay gecko and birds of prey which affected her appearance and physiology. Delta was engineered to be more suitable for the I.B.R.I.S. Project, since the older raptor varieties had failed due to unpredictable aggression.
Despite being Delta’s creator, Dr. Wu does not appear to have been present for much of her life. After she graduated from the Hammond Creation Lab’s hatchery, she likely did not see him often at all, since he rarely left the lab. However, Wu did also create the Indominus, which led to the end of Delta’s life in 2015.
Vic Hoskins and InGen Security
I.B.R.I.S. was an InGen Security project from its inception, with the planning stages occurring well before Delta or her sisters were even a concept. She was hatched into a program overseen by Security’s leading mind Vic Hoskins, whose aims for the project were to determine whether genetically-modified Velociraptors could be used as military animals in the same manner as dogs and other modern species. This aspect of I.B.R.I.S. was its most controversial, with some Security employees such as Grady and Sembéne strongly opposing it. Hoskins began pressing for a field test in 2013 when it was determined that the raptors’ social behavior was more complex than originally anticipated.
Although Hoskins was the project overseer, he was not frequently at the paddock. Instead, he received updates from his employees, particularly Grady and Sembéne, but also the ACU troopers employed to watch the paddock. The troopers were tasked with keeping a close eye on Delta and her sisters and acting to prevent escapes. Other staff at the paddock, including handlers such as Colby Boothman-Shepard, may have been employed by InGen Security. Two handlers including Boothman-Shepard were threatened by Delta and her sisters in 2015, with the unnamed handler being wounded so badly that they could no longer continue working at the paddock. It is not known if this handler survived the injuries. Delta and two of her sisters attempted to attack Boothman-Shepard during an incident in which he was dragged into the paddock, but their attempt was halted by Grady and other InGen Security staff.
Delta strongly disliked Hoskins, perhaps because of the way Grady and Sembéne acted around him. He was obviously an authority figure, but not one they trusted. Delta recognized Hoskins’s scent and became agitated whenever he was around. The feeling was hardly mutual, as Hoskins simply assumed Delta was always aggressive. He also wrongly assumed Delta was a male raptor; Delta could not have known this, but it did show how little Hoskins actually knew about the animals he had so much interest in. Sembéne noted Delta’s intent focus on Hoskins, the same focus she always placed on her prey.
During the night of December 22, 2015, Hoskins brought a number of InGen Security contractors and soldiers to Isla Nublar and commandeered I.B.R.I.S. following Simon Masrani’s death. These members of Security were not part of Jurassic World’s staff, so Delta was unfamiliar with them. InGen Security accompanied Delta and her family on their first out-of-paddock hunt, which led to her encountering the Indominus. This creature convinced Blue to abandon Grady, and Delta concurred. Moments later, the Security personnel were ordered remotely by Hoskins to open fire on the Indominus. The raptors initially fled from the gunfire but then turned on Security, using ambush tactics to pick them off one by one. Charlie was killed in the fight.
The conflict led to the Innovation Center, where Delta was tasked with flushing out Grady for Blue and Echo to ambush. While inside the Hammond Creation Lab, she encountered Hoskins, who was there along with Grady and the other humans; most of the InGen Security staff had left by the time Delta entered. She momentarily ignored Grady and approached Hoskins, losing focus on her real target for the first time in her life. Hoskins tried to make peace with her, but she looked upon him and saw only weakness. Delta killed Hoskins by biting his right hand, throwing him to the ground, and tearing his body open.
Park visitors
Tourists at Jurassic World were unable to see Delta or her sisters in person, since they were classified for I.B.R.I.S. research and not accessible to the general public. Her only direct interaction with visitors to Jurassic World was with two members of Camp Cretaceous, Kenji Kon and Darius Bowman, who trespassed into the raptor paddock on December 19, 2015. Delta was summoned by Blue to attack the two teenagers, but they were stopped by the park rangers along with Camp Cretaceous counselors Dave and Roxie.
The Indominus
On her first out-of-paddock hunt, Delta was tasked with tracking down an unknown animal by scent using a piece of its flesh. She followed Blue on a breakneck hunt through the island’s northern jungle, slowing down only when she smelled the creature nearby. They heard its vocalization, which sounded surprisingly familiar, and Echo responded to it. The animal revealed herself: an enormous theropod the likes of which Delta would never have seen before, the Indominus rex. This animal was able to understand the raptors’ vocalizations and respond in turn. Blue asserted her status as the pack’s beta as the dinosaurs sized one another up.
The Indominus appeared, to Delta and her sisters, to be everything a raptor would look for in an alpha and leader. She was powerful, much more so than any human or even a raptor, with deadly claws and teeth. She was also intelligent and confident, traits that are highly valued in raptor alphas. There was also one other advantage the Indominus could provide as an alpha: the freedom to live outside of the paddock walls, no longer confined or restricted. Blue rejected Grady in favor of this new and alluring leader, and Delta concurred.
With the Indominus as her alpha, Delta engaged in a fight against InGen Security which led to Charlie’s death. This enraged the raptors, who blamed the humans rather than the Indominus at first. Delta chased down an MVU as it fled from the scene, only giving up the chase when the Indominus summoned them all to reconvene in the jungle. They made their way toward their new leader’s original destination: the hotel, where all the park visitors were packed waiting to be evacuated. This worked in favor of Delta, since Grady and his friends were at the Innovation Center just across the Lagoon from the hotel. She and her sisters went ahead of the Indominus to find Grady.
They tracked him to the Innovation Center. Delta went inside to flush him out, with Blue and Echo waiting to ambush him when he was chased outside. When they had him surrounded, though, Blue hesitated and did not give the kill order. She reconsidered her decision to reject Grady in favor of the Indominus. Delta, by now, had calmed down enough to think more rationally as well: the Indominus had led them into a fight where Charlie had died almost immediately, and Grady had kept them safe for their entire lives until this point. The Indominus, despite all her strengths, lacked the skill and experience to think out battle plans. She also had no sense of loyalty, driving the raptors to fight on even if it cost their lives.
When their new alpha caught up with them, she gave Blue a kill order, which Blue refused. For her defiance, Blue was given an apparently fatal slap, and Delta and Echo were given the opportunity to reconsider. But now, with the blood of their beloved sister on the claws of the Indominus, they would never respect her again. Delta and Echo stayed true to Blue’s last order to them, fighting the Indominus until their final breaths. The creature killed Delta by throwing her into a restaurant kitchen, accidentally causing a brief but fatal gas explosion. Delta was slain, but her valiant fight had given the humans enough time to take action. Blue, who had survived her attack, regained consciousness and avenged her fallen sisters by helping to drive the Indominus to her death in the Jurassic World Lagoon.
Claire Dearing
Delta’s relationship with Jurassic World’s Senior Assets Manager Claire Dearing was mostly one-sided, since Dearing mostly supervised all of the park’s animals from the control room and other operations facilities. Delta, as a specimen in a high-profile InGen Security project, would have been of particular importance. However, Dearing never actually saw Delta or her sisters in person until the 2015 incident, during which the Head of Security Vic Hoskins appropriated the I.B.R.I.S. raptors for a field test. Dearing was not involved with the exercise, but was affected by its aftermath.
After rejecting Owen Grady as her alpha and retaliating against him for Charlie’s death, the high-speed chase took Delta to the access road where Dearing was attempting to drive her nephews to safety in a Mobile Veterinary Unit. During the pursuit, Delta attacked the MVU, realizing that its weakness was inside and trying to get in through the rear doors. She was fended off by the vehicle’s occupants, and before she could make another attack, she was summoned away by her new alpha. The chase then became an ambush hunt, leading to Main Street.
Although Dearing was put in the path of Delta’s attacks, she was not the main target. Instead, she was in danger through association with Grady. Delta set up an ambush for Grady outside the Innovation Center, and since Dearing was accompanying him, she and her nephews were also caught in the ambush. Delta lost her focus for the only time in her life during this ambush: she spotted Vic Hoskins, who she hated, and killed him instead. She still managed to drive Dearing and the others into the ambush despite distractions and setbacks, but Blue had her stand down rather than make the kill. Blue had realized that the Indominus was unfit to be their alpha and called off the attack. Dearing’s life was spared as a result. Delta died in the ensuing fight, but her assault on the Indominus gave Dearing enough cover to put a new plan into action.
Other InGen staff
While access to the raptor research paddock was restricted to certain personnel, many members of InGen were at least aware of Delta’s existence. She was probably researched by geneticists due to her unique genomic constitution, and was cared for by paleoveterinarians and other animal handler staff members. The I.B.R.I.S. Project involved various other researchers, and had been authorized by Masrani Global Corporation‘s CEO Simon Masrani; he hoped that the raptors could be integrated into a park environment if they were properly understood. Masrani opposed Vic Hoskins’s plan to market the raptors as military animals.
Zach and Gray Mitchell
Delta was briefly involved with the Mitchell brothers‘ misadventures in Jurassic World during the 2015 incident. They accompanied their aunt Claire Dearing and her romantic partner Owen Grady to the raptor paddock on the night of December 22, though they were not intended to be a part of the action. Instead, they were there to ensure that Dearing could keep watch over them personally. After the Indominus seduced the raptors away from Grady, a high-speed chase down the service road between the paddock and Sector 3 ensued. The Mitchells were on board an MVU driven by Dearing and were threatened by Blue and her sisters as they pursued the vehicle, fighting off Delta using a shock prod.
The Mitchells were also present at the Innovation Center when Delta set up an ambush for Grady, though they were not the main target. As with Dearing, they were threatened only because of their association with Grady, and were spared from further violence when Blue and Grady made amends. Delta was killed in the fight that followed, but she kept the Indominus occupied. While watching Delta and Echo, Gray realized that the raptors were not powerful enough to win the fight, which inadvertently inspired Dearing to enlist the help of another, bigger animal. Sadly this came too late to save Delta.
Portrayal
Delta is portrayed through a combination of motion-capture animation, computer-generated imagery, and animatronics. Delta’s motion capture in Jurassic World was performed by an uncredited ILM employee. Like most of the characters in the sequel trilogy, she is not based on any particular character from Michael Crichton‘s novels.
